Be Our Guest
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Just because one is beauteous on the outside doesn't mean their heart is likewise. It's easy to sing and feast while the people outside your castle are starving.


**Be Our Guest**

It's winter, and I can hear them singing.

It's a tale as old as time – the strong feast, and the weak starve. The rhythm of the seasons remains constant, and winter has returned to France. A winter that cuts through flesh, through bone, through soul. It's the chill in our skin, that drives us to survive, or if we can swallow our pride, beg for alms from those in the castle. It's the chill in our bone that reminds us of our place, that those who can feast in this time of famine are the ones with power. And at last, as winter's touch enters our soul, in some of us, a fire is kindled. A belief that things can be better. That they _should _be better. And that maybe, someday, we could make it so.

Not this day, I remind myself. Not this night, as cold and bitter as any, as wolves prowl the forests, and the starved gather in the village. Not this night where I have come to the walls of the castle to hear them sing. To listen to the old lie sung over and over – of being our guest, while never inviting anyone who is not of royal blood. They sing, they dance, they drink, and they then retire, ignorant or uncaring of those beyond their walls.

I can smell it. Potatoes, boiled by roaring fires. Carrots and turnips, given flavour with spices taken from as far away as India. I imagine them drinking from the finest china. And the meat. Oh God, the meat…pig, beef, chicken, turkey…things that many of us could only dream of, now entering the people's bellies night after night. And after that, retiring to their great bedrooms, or their great halls. They sing, and I am reminded, starving in the snow, that the dinner in this castle is never second best. Even in the knowledge that I or anyone else in this land will know for ourselves, I believe them.

There's tales you know. Of a great beast who lived in this place, and how a girl from our very village was the one to tame him. Decades have passed since that time, and few are alive to remember it. But while the prince is a recluse, his wife has made no secret of her contempt for us. Of we, the little people, with our little minds, in our little town, working our little fields and sending so much of it to the castle in which she resides. She, who is said to be the most beauteous woman in France, nay, the world. She, who regards us as illiterate peasants, but used her wealth to buy every book in the town library for herself and leave the building to crumble. She, who when we begged that we could send no more bread, declared that we should eat cake instead.

Perhaps she is the most beautiful woman in France, but I know not one who has an uglier heart.

The song is ending. I can hear them cheering. I imagine that they're on the wine now. Finest vintages from the finest vineyards, cultivated by "little people" that they will never know. I sigh, and make my way to one of the castle's secondary gates. Dinner is ended, and so, the scraps are to be fed to the pigs, or simply thrown away. If I'm lucky, I may be able to scrounge up enough of it to feed my family this night. If I'm unlucky, my wife and children will starve. If I'm exceptionally unlucky, my neck will have an appointment with the hangman's noose.

There's other stories. A time when the village tried to storm the castle in a bid to free themselves from the monster who dwelt within. Some of the elders, those who haven't succumbed to injury, starvation, or disease, tell of Gaston. The finest hunter in the land, who would share his spoils with the villagers. A hero of the war against Portugal. The most handsome man the village had ever seen, and where women would faint at the mere sight of him. Some whisper that they did a lot more, that half of the bastards my age are of his blood, but who can say? It takes a man and woman to make a child. By the time that child has come of age, they're lucky to have one parent still alive, let alone both of them.

But lucky or not, there's talk of more. We, the "little people," still outnumber those in the castle. We, in this "provincial village," are still the ones who feed the bellies of the so-called "elite." Liberty. Freedom. Revolution. These are the words upon our lips, and these are the lines of our own songs. True songs. Not songs based on lies. Of inviting guests, when none are invited at all.

Maybe someday. Maybe someday, me or my children, will be able to eat cake and bread both. Maybe someday, the ugliness in this castle will come to an end. Maybe someday…maybe someday…

But it matters not. They're dumping the food. All I have to do is get over the wall, snag some, then get back to the other side without being torn apart by the dogs, or shot by the guards. Simple, no?

Bon chance, mon ami.


End file.
